Pommes frites

I found one of my earlier pieces. A deep fryer, I built for a christmas market stand, which I took apart yesterday. It was an UFO, that I wouldn't bring to an end in my whole life. Now have to put it away. I can't stand the smell of old fat in my nose - and this deep-frying fat is some years old...

Link of the Day

It seems to be a great giveaway time. Annie has an autumn giveaway on her wonderful blog.

Link of the Day

Carolyn has a wonderful giveaway on her blog.

Fruit Picker

Now I have a fruit picker. This way I don't have to climb a weathered ladder. It's much safer this way...

Link of the Day

A great tutorial for a chefs hat from Annemarie Kwikkel. She also makes beautiful dolls, which you can see here.
Picture by courtesy of Annemarie Kwikkel.

Cheese Grater

A few days ago I made fresh pesto from basil and of course I had to grate my parmiggiano reggiano.... YUM!
When I fetched the cheese grater I thought, this would be very nice in mini.....

Here you have a closer look at my graters in 1:12 and 1:24.
Heinrike, now you can guess, where the itsybitsytinyone will go...

Link of the Day

Tutorial for a little raffia basket from Lia e Alma - mille grazie!
Picture by courtesy of Lia e Alma

My new gluing board

I always have pieces of wood left, so I decided to make my own little gluing board after buying this metall sheet for 4 Euro.

Because I wanted to change the metall sheet easily, I didn't make a total frame but only 1 right angle. If you'll make one of these jigs, make sure, that the 3 angles are asolutely square.

 

 

Then I plunged a magnet into the wooden base, so the metall sheet is held in place.

 

Last week I ordered some bigger magnets (on the pic are the small ones), so I'll have a perfect gluing tool for less than 10 Euro.

Link of the Day

Muriel has a wonderful giveaway on her blog for her followers. She makes the most wonderful miniatures and I'd be happy to win one of the THREE giveaways!

The Rusty Version

 

Yesterday I finished the second watering can, that I started on saturday. This time a rusty version.

Link of the Day

 

Lena has a wonderful giveaway on her blog today.

Minihexen Meeting - August 2010

Today we had our monthly Minihexen (Mini Witches) Meeting and the girls wanted to make watering cans. I showed them how to do it and made one for myself. It's a watering can for children, which I want for the Antique Toy Shop. Everytime I go to the nearest weekly market, I see these cans at a shop and find them so nice. I had to have one in mini for myself.

This is my relaxing - Um, well - this was my proposed relaxing place for the evening on the balcony. No chance!

Link of the Day

Tutorial for a babycarrier.

What Wood You Like?

 

My wood arrived a few days ago. Thomas from woodart has wonderful wood for miniaturists and is very helpful. I found veneer, a lot of wooden strips and small boards in different types. A love maplewood and would like to make a secretary for my library / living room. I hope, I'll have enough time after the show in Gießen to start with the new roomboxes.

Have a nice weekend. I don't know, if I'll have time for a post, but I took pictures when I made a jig for my table saw and I'd like to assemble a tutorial. After the show in Gießen I'll spent a few days with Heinrike and then I'll have time for longer posts.

Link of the Day

The perfect calculator for inch, feet, mm., cm and 1/12 scale
Followup: Otterine wrote: "Have a look around, too. They have some nice furniture tutorials on the site."
That's true - sorry I forgot to say. Thank you, Otterine!!!

My new Workbench

Okay,  it's no bench, but my new place for nearly all my table saws and drills....

On Thursday I went to my favorite shop for machine tools and felt like a child on christmas........ There are so many things I'd like to have, but I only bought a new drill stand, a new proxxon handtool (my third, because I  like to have one on the small drill stand, one with a flexishaft and one with steel collets for extremly exact working) with transformer and some "toys" for my husband. Did I say "only"???

When I came home, I had no place to put all my new machinery. What a surprise LOL! On Wednesday I found, that I needed new dust masks. So we had to go to Bauhaus (a big DIY store in Germany), which is located directly beside IKEA - - - what a coincidence....   So we went looking for a shelf  - and found it.It fits exactly. 1mm more and it would have been tooooooo big. It took me 1/2 hour to squash it between the window and the wooden shelf, which I had to clear out first, because I had to shove it to the left as far as it was possible (3cm).

And because I was occupied with shopping and squashing, I haven't had the time to post. - and to make miniatures. The show in Gießen will be in 2 weeks. I think it's time for a little PANIC! But I want to make shaker boxes. So I needed this new drill stand and so one thing leaded to another.... but now I'm happy with my new work place and panicking because of too little time.

Link of the Day

Tutorial for a Gothic Mannequin from Mary Williams.

Wooden Basket with Apples

The picture isn't perfectly sharp, but I hope you can get an impression. This evening I try to make the corresponding fruit picker.

Link of the Day

A lot of dollshouse building projects and their construction from Laura Isabella's Miniatures Page

Camembert

I can't believe how much time it took to make these wooden Camembert boxes. When I made my first boxes for cheese, I used a drinking straw (real straw), ironed it and cut it in half. But the outside of the box was glossy. Theses boxes are made of real and very, very thin wood. Now they look more real.

Link of the Day

Tutti al mare!

 A tutorial for the day at the beach. I hope my italian followers enjoyed the day immensly!

Un buon Ferragosto a Italia!

Link of the Day

I haven't had the time to make pictures of my new miniatures, so again there is only a "Link of the Day". But a very nice one: The Blue Willow Kitchen Project
Tomorrow I hopefully come back with news from my own workbench...
And thanks for your nice comments. I'm so happy, that you like the work of Chopoli. I find it just amazing!

Link of the Day

How to make realistic looking ropes. Tutorial here.

Link of the Day

When I first saw the work of Chopoli, I thought it was a photography with real people and a great styling....
Her work is full of life. You can see more here. 
Picture by courtesy of Tatjana - Chopoli

Tête de Moine

I made Tête de Moine. Phil Grenyer has been so kind to bring me these wooden boards to London. He knows a woodturner, who is making boards for his glasdomes and I asked, if I could have 5 of them. Now my friend Rita can have her cheese and one is for my delicatessen.

And I wanted to thank you, for all your nice comments. 
I'm always so happy to hear from you!

Link of the Day

Tutorial for a very nice chandelier.

Mensch ärgere Dich nicht - Parcheesi

This is the german version of Parcheesi. I'm extremly proud of it, because it is really in scale. Since years I wanted to make this game, but it always turned out not good enough. Now I'm satisfied with the result and can show it to you. I've made 3 of these games. One for me and the others for sale. But I have to think about the price. I spent hours and hours of work with these games.

And here you can see it with a 1:1 meeple...

 

Oh, by the way - the meeple is 2,3 cm high.

Link of the Day

Because so many of you (like me) seems to like shabby chich ....  here is a tutorial for a tri-mirror.

Wooden Basket 3

I hope, I'm not boring you too much with my wooden baskets, but today I'll try to make the dices for my "Mensch ärgere Dich nicht" game. So tomorrow there will be something different to look at.

After making the wooden baskets I'm in a dilemma. I'd like to keep one for myself, but which one?! It's extremly difficult to decide. I think, I'll take all three to Gießen and keep the remaining one (or two... or three...).

Have a wonderful day!

Link of the Day

Look, what I found on Judit Molnár great blog. Jilly is only 5cm high, but already adopted. Isn't she CUTE?!
Picture by courtesy of  Judit Molnár

Wooden Basket with Flowers

I am busy making these wooden baskets and now I fill them. They will be all different.

Link of the Day

A great tutorial for an Ascot Boiler.

Gardening Helpers

I'm busy making tools and other helpful minis for the passionate gardener.

Link of the Day

A very nice tutorial for Delphinium flowers from the Tudor dollhouse blog

Busy & lazy

I'm busy and lazy.... a new speciality of mine. One day I'm busy with the minis for Gießen and the other day I reserve for my husband and our friends. We have holiday season in Berlin and I promised, I wouldn't work the whole time. But the most important thing about being lazy is - NO LAPTOP! So I'll not post every day.
Oh - by the way. This "thing" on the pic is called Friesenbaum. A christmas decoration from northern Germany.

Link of the Day

The new AIM for August

Again - from Heinrike

Again some mouthwatering minis from Heinrike. Aren't they delicious?!

Link of the Day

Kerry has a new miniature in her ebay shop!!! She makes the most beautiful animals, but unfortunately she makes only a few of them. I can't afford them, because the prices are always going high, but I always love to have a look at the pictures.

New paint pots

I made new paint pots for the show in Gießen.

Link of the Day

If you like to make your own baskets - here is the technique

Cheeky Raven!

The first (and perhaps the last) bird I ever made.
Jana has a beautiful witch from Silke Janas-Schlösser, but she looks a little bit annoyed. So I pondered on the cause....... and came to the idea of making a raven and a shattered pot. BAD BOY!
You can see more of Janas witch on her blog.

Hopp Schwiiz - Link of the Day

Today is nationalday in Switzerland. So I went looking for an appropriate link and found this: